


Memorize

by mushembra



Series: The Blind Eyes Can Still See [1]
Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Blind Character, Blindness, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mental Illness, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-04
Updated: 2016-05-04
Packaged: 2018-06-06 11:03:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6751405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mushembra/pseuds/mushembra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Caleb falls into the trap of a dream<br/>It originally brings him a reprieve from the stress and pain he suffers in the Commonwealth, but then becomes quite painful and terrifying<br/>It's a good thing he has someone to support and comfort him in these times of agony</p>
            </blockquote>





	Memorize

**Author's Note:**

> Phew! It took forever to write this, and I'm still not all that happy with it  
> I just have to say, I think I finally have a Sole that I love  
> Caleb is just...UUUUGH...I have a lot of feels for this blind asshole who has a lot of persistence and strength to persevere in the Commonwealth with the help and love of his dear sad trash sniper dad  
> I hope to do a lot of writing with these two, and with Caleb and the other companions, but sometimes I have these depression downswings and it's hard  
> That and sometimes I can't think of prompts  
> So if you have a story you wanna see with Caleb, then let me know!

This was a dream. Caleb knew this was a dream, but the stresses of the last couple of weeks left him vulnerable. It left him wanting comfort and just a moment of reprieve from his still rather new and hellish life. In the Commonwealth, you couldn’t afford to let your guard down, especially in his case, being the General of the Minutemen and being disabled from his blindness. People tended to take advantage of him or underestimate his capabilities. Hell, he’s struggled with such prejudice since he’s left the vault (and even dealt with it in his pre-war life). So when his dream carried him back to Sanctuary Hills, in the time before the bombs had laid it to waste, he was willing to give in despite the sadness he felt. Just for a moment of peace. Just to be able to breathe again. He was sitting on the stoop to his house, his near blind, blurry vision a mix of the beautiful, hazy colors. Even with his vision compromised, the neighborhood was beautiful this time of year, mixing into a sea of soft, autumn pastels. He could hear the laughter of the neighborhood children, the wind rustling the leaves falling from the trees. It was a cool fall day, the sun warming his skin and warming his heart. What he would give to be here again, to live in this moment forever. If he could just die right here, his mind at peace it would have been for the better.

 

“Caleb? Hun?”

 

Caleb turned towards Jenine, his wife, who was now standing behind him with their little boy cooing happily her arms. God was he lucky to have such a wonderful woman in his life. Determined, patient, and so caring. He had half expected her to leave him when he returned from the war near blind, burdened with PTSD and other severe mental illness from his brutal experiences overseas. It was a fate shared by a lot of his fellow soldiers, their wives seeing them as more of a burden and a liability, not worth taking the time to help them work through their ordeals. But she had remained and offered her strength, and over the year after his return, she helped him heal. He couldn’t have done it without her. She was his pillar, one of the reasons why he continued making progress and moving forward. Christ he missed her. He needed her. Why did it have to be her?

 

“What’s wrong? You’ve got that...distant look again.”

 

Caleb reached out to rub his wife’s leg, knowing even in his dream, he couldn’t hide that forlorn look of longing, of longing for something that he had lost and could never get back. His life had been stolen and destroyed, and for what? Did anyone really win the war? It was all gone, and he could never claim it back. So many strides of progress for humanity, all undone in an instant. He sure hoped those bastards who pressed those buttons suffered an unfortunate death for all of the destruction they had wrought. Yet he knew all of this pent up hatred would do nothing to bring his family back. He was just so exhausted.

 

“It’s nothing...just...thinking…”

 

Jenine sighed softly, moving to take a seat beside her husband. Caleb lay his head on her shoulder, offering a finger to his curious little boy. Shaun eagerly took it, chubby little hands pulling the finger into his mouth eagerly. His father couldn’t help but laugh, yet couldn’t keep the hot tears from forming in his eyes. His dear little boy. He was still out there somewhere, and he would find him. He would make the Institute pay for ripping his wife and child away. What gave them the right? All he knew was that they had taken his son for a reason. They must have, and they spared his life for another. He would learn the truth. He would save his son. He promised this to Jenine after her death, but despite that, a promise was a promise.

 

“How did I get so lucky?”

 

Jenine brought a hand to her husband’s hair shortly cropped hair, playing with it soothingly, trying to bring him out of his funk. It was pretty common for him, but his wife had learned how to coax him out of his negative headspace. Caleb replied with a soft hum, hazy blue eyes closing. It’s dreams like this that made him wish they had died together as a family, rather than having to live the life he did now. He never should have signed off on that paperwork. They should have never stepped into that vault. If only he had known. Vault-Tec were expert con artists, and he had bought the lie. He did it to save his family. If only he had known. 

 

“I could ask you the same thing. I was...worried for a little bit that you might just give up after you came home. I was worried I lost you forever. But here you are and I am so _proud_ of you. I couldn’t ask for a better husband.”

 

Caleb felt a tug at his heart, his stomach doing terrible flips. Proud. She shouldn’t be proud. He was no longer the wholesome and good man that she married and admired. He had to do some sly and underhanded things to get by in the Commonwealth, things he would never have imagined he would be capable of doing in the life he had lived before. Thievery, contract killings, brutal violence when he lost control of himself to his illness. In the eyes of the people of the Commonwealth, he might as well be a saint for the good that he did for them, which outweighed the bad things everyone else was willing to do to get ahead in life. But being a man from a time where such things weren’t necessary to survive, he was a liar and a criminal. The things he had to do weighed on his heart, and he despised himself for it. Caleb reached out to take his wife’s chin in his hand, turning her face to face him, moving his thumb to stroke over her soft lips, but what he felt left him frozen; rather, it was what he didn’t feel that chilled him to the bone.

 

His thumb met nothing but a smooth canvas of skin where her lips should be, a canvas that was blank and devoid of identifying characteristics. Caleb started to shake, fingers now roaming over his wife’s face, to trace her features in a frantic and needy way. But there were no features to trace. No nose, no eyes, no lines or creases that he knew should be there. There was nothing. Her face was blank, empty, devoid of everything that identified this woman as his wife. He used to know, used to know every inch of her face. He would never have been able to mistaken another for Jenine. But this woman was no one, nothing, nothing but a husk with a voice so familiar. Who was she? Where was his wife?

 

“Caleb? Hun, you’re scaring me. What’s...what’s wrong?”

 

Jenine’s ‘voice’ edged with concern, but the fact that she could speak without a mouth merely startled him even more. Caleb jolted to his feet, heart beating frantically as his hands mimicked roaming touches in the air in front of him. No, no, no. This was all wrong. All so wrong. He remembered. He must remember. Her face. He remembers her face. It was...it was…

 

“No...no, no…”

 

“Caleb, please, calm down...what is it? Hun, talk to me.”

 

Jenine rose to her feet, taking a step towards her husband. Caleb reached out desperately, taking that blank face in his hands once again. Then he let his fingers roam, up to her head, which was devoid of the soft, curly hair he believed he had grown so accustomed to. Then they traveled down her body, which was not the same as he remembered. No, he knew it didn’t feel quite right, but he just couldn’t remember how she felt. Was she soft? Muscular and strong? Thin and lanky? He couldn’t remember anything. All of those vivid features, all that Jenine was, he was starting to forget, and it terrified him to the core. Then, with a fearful suspicion, his trembling fingers reached for Shaun, stroking across the infant’s face. Blank. Nothing. He couldn’t remember. It was just a soft pudge of flesh that was no different than the woman before him. He couldn’t remember his family. He couldn’t remember. No matter how hard he tried to focus on his family and draw back on his memory, he just couldn’t remember.

 

The pastels of the world around him started to blur further, an ominous heat flaring up at his back. Then the colors started going orange, flickering before his hazy blue eyes. He couldn’t see the flames clearly, but he knew they were there, consuming his once familiar neighborhood. His skin got hotter and hotter, the sensation of burning crawling over it. Burning. He was burning alive, but he could do nothing to run from it. The world was burning. The fire of the bombs were stealing away all that he held dear. He could now hear the voices of his wife and child, Jenine sobbing, Shaun screaming, crying out to be saved, by he couldn’t save them, no matter how much he wanted to, not even in his dreams. Caleb clapped his hands over his ears, his own sobs joining the noise. He just wanted it to stop. He didn’t want them to suffer this pain any longer. He was burning, he was dying, he was falling apart and losing it all, all over again. The one thing that got him through, the memory of his life before he lost it all, was starting to fade, and he just couldn’t take it. How could he find Shaun if he couldn’t remember what he looked like? How would he even know he had found his son, if he has aged beyond recognition, if he was no longer the infant he had lost to a mercenary without a heart? He couldn’t carry on like this. He couldn’t do this. If there was nothing left for him to hold onto, then why continue the fight? Why not just burn down to the core and let the Commonwealth eat him alive. It was over. Checkmate. He has fought so hard, but no matter how hard he pushed back against the Institute, he was always destined to lose...

 

\-------------------

 

Caleb awoke with a start, frantically throwing the tattered blanket he had scavenged off of his body. He was sweaty, too hot, and he felt sick and terrified. Where was he? What was going on? He couldn’t focus, he couldn’t calm himself down. His hands reached out frantically, trying to find something to hold on to. He needed to be grounded. He was sinking, and he didn’t want to sink into the abyss of the depression the always seemed to edge at the corners of his mind. But there was no Jenine. There was no Shaun. He had no home, and he had no future. All of those things he had were gone. He had nothing to hold on to.

 

“Caleb! Hey, hey, ssshhh...hey there, come here.”

 

For a moment Caleb was in a daze, letting out a series of incoherent and terrified shouts. He tried to shove away whoever it was trying to coax him back to reality, feeling quite smothered and unable to handle the touches the other person tried to minister to him. His skin still burned, and he felt much too hot, and those calloused hands made him feel even hotter, being very warm themselves. But the man didn’t relent. Soon, small arms did their best to wrap awkwardly around his much larger frame, but the grip was safe and secure. Caleb eventually lost all energy to continue fighting against the embrace, his hands now shakily reaching for a face he couldn’t quite recall in this panicked moment. It was only once he started to feel it’s features that he finally started to calm a little more sincerely. MacCready.

 

“Jeez, Caleb, you’re white as a sheet! What the heck did you see in that head of yours?”

 

“R.J. ...I...I-I…”

 

Caleb choked on a sob, and the look of absolute terror and sadness on his face pained the mercenary who held him so intimately. He didn’t have nightmares all the time, but when he did, they were never easy to watch, or to pull the man out of. He may not be able to see, but he had a really damn vivid imagination. He’s tried explaining to MacCready the nature of his dreams, but they weren’t always understood, much to hs dismay.

 

“Caleb, I’m here. I’m not going anywhere...whoa, WHOA THERE! Heeeey...focus on my voice…”

 

Caleb’s fingers were frantically dancing over the features of MacCready’s face, touching, feeling, trying so hard to apparently memorize every inch of it. He had to remember. He had to commit it all to memory. So that he wouldn’t forget He had to remember. The mercenary, thankfully, had become very patient with the man’s need to touch his face, since he couldn’t really see it, and this was the only way he could paint a picture in his head of what he looked like. Though usually, he did so in a way that was gentle and intimate, not quite so desperate, as if it were the only thing tying him to the world. It was definitely concerning.

 

“Can’t forget...I...I can’t…”

 

“Forget? Come on Caleb, you’re scaring me. Forget what? What did you see?”

 

Caleb pressed his forehead against his lover’s, doing his best to take deep, even breaths. He wouldn’t calm down if he continued to hyperventilate, gasping for air that he just couldn’t seem to get into his lungs. So he focused on MacCready’s breathing, trying to match pace with his calmer in and out breaths. His hands now firmly held the smaller man’s face, thumb stroking over his cheek. Features. There were features. There was identity. It was him, his grumpy little mercenary, his saving grace. He started to regain a bit of his color, his breaths becoming ever more steady. His thoughts were finally starting to settle, enough that he could finally piece together something like a coherent sentence in his head.

 

“I was...I was in Sanctuary...w-with Jenine. It was so...normal...a good dream for a change. But... when I went to touch her face, it...it was blank. Nothing. I can’t...I can’t remember what she looks like. I can’t...I can’t remember…how could I _forget_ something like that?!”

 

Caleb just couldn’t stop the tears that were overwhelming him. The memory of his wife, of her soft and comforting features, it’s what had gotten him through for so many months after he left the vault, pressing him forward in his mission to find their son. In times when he struggled, all he had to do was think of her, and it brought him a sense of calm and helped him recollect his strength when it started to fail him. Now, that memory was fading to a point beyond recognition. Likely due to stress and his mental illness. He just had never been quite as sharp when he came back from the war, and now it was claiming the only thing he had left of a life he longed so desperately to go back to. MacCready felt for him. He knew what Caleb was going through. There were some days when he couldn’t clearly see Lucy’s face in his memories, and at first it was terrifying and heartbreaking, and he had been ashamed that he could forget something he thought was so important. But he learned something over the years after her passing, something that very well could help Caleb move forward.

 

“I want you to listen to me, Caleb.”

 

Caleb sniffled, closing his eyes, leaning into MacCready’s touch as the merc brought his hands to the man’s face, to wipe away his tears. Sadness didn’t suit the General, who had a smile that could inspire just about anyone to believe that maybe, everything was going to be alright, even if he couldn’t promise such a thing. It certainly brought light to his once cold heart, so the tears brought to him a lot of pain.

 

“It doesn’t matter if you can’t remember what someone or something looks like. Because...what matters are their actions, what they did for you, the impact they made on your life. I mean come _on_ , look around...erm...I mean uh…take the wasteland for example. It used to look all...green and clean or some crap. But now it’s just a freakin’ dump. Everything looks dead and is...crumbling down, falling apart. How things look, they...aren’t forever. But memories, and the life you make and all that mumbo jumbo... _that’s_ what really matters. How Jenine looked, that’s not what matters...what she did, and the time you spent together, that’s what really matters.”

 

MacCready’s voice petered off awkwardly, fumbling over his words and just how he wanted to say what he needed to. He was never very good at comforting people, or having heart to hearts. Sure, He learned how to open up a bit because of Lucy and her tender nature, but she was the first and only person he had opened up to, Caleb being the second. But for his partner, he would do anything. 

 

“I uh…”

 

MacCready brought a hand to the back of his neck, letting out a sigh, averting his eyes nervously. Jeez, he just felt like he made the situation a little more awkward. Might not have been the right thing to say, but what really was the right thing for this sort of situation? Caleb, however, finally stopped crying, his eyes once again opening and staring blankly at R.J.’s face. It used to creep him the hell out, but he got used to those soft blue eyes, and didn’t want to make him feel any more self-conscious than everyone else already made him feel about his blindness. A soft smile pulled to Caleb’s lips, then he nuzzled affectionately into his lover's neck, seeking purchase in the warmth of his skin. That was definitely a good sign.

 

“See? There ya go...I gotcha. I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere...and Jenine...she isn’t either...because if you keep her memory alive, she’ll always be with you. Just like Lucy is with me. We...we keep them alive in our hearts, even if they aren’t physically here anymore...”

 

“Mmmm…” 

 

They both really did fit each other like a glove. They understood each other, understood each other’s struggles. It’s why they worked so well together, and why they fell so madly in love against all odds. Now, neither of the men could imagine a life without the other, without that understanding and support to carry them through the rough times. Hell, they saved each other, plain and simple, and now there was the possibility of a future that they had never even comprehended. They had been living for someone else, pushing forward for the future of their children, but now they were fighting for their own futures. Perhaps they didn’t have to give up, perhaps they didn’t have to be alone, and perhaps there was a life worth living to be found in each other.

 

“You’re right...you’re always right...guess an old dog can really learn new tricks...and it took a younger dog to teach me that.”

 

“Well _someone's_  gotta show you the ropes.”

 

MacCready grazed his nose against Caleb’s, nuzzling tenderly against it, before pressing his lips against the other man’s. In that moment, their pain, their sadness, it all melted away in the intimacy. Who could have guessed that a pre-war retired Army soldier and a young, mouthy mercenary could find such warmth and peace in one another. The two of them certainly never saw this coming, yet were so grateful to have found each other on that fateful day in the Third Rail. They held each other close, pressing with such need into the kiss. Caleb was careful of MacCready’s sensitive and damaged teeth, the merc roaming the man’s mouth with his sly tongue. They could feel the heat starting to coil within them, and usually, they would give in to the desire for more. But this moment wasn’t a time for such a thing. Not with painful emotions running so high. This was a moment for tenderness, for love, for support.

 

“R.J. ...have I told you...have much I love you lately?”

 

Caleb’s fingers trace the lines of the merc’s face once again once they broke the kiss, face scrunched up in concentration, memorizing the the planes, the features, anything he could use to discern him from any other person. Yes, the memory of his lover was more important than the vision of his rugged face, but still, he didn’t want to forget. He didn’t want to lose the conjured image of the man who loved him so dearly, and MacCready let the man indulge in his need. If it’ll help keep him calm, who was he to stop him?  A grin tugged up the merc’s lips, feeling comfortable enough to flash his ruined teeth. Not that Caleb could see them, but he would be comfortable even if he could. He was the one person who has never judged him, and that was a rarity, something he had only ever found in Lucy before him. 

 

“No, don’t think you have. I was starting to feel a little neglected. I kinda figured you’d found someone better to hang on to.”

 

Caleb snorted, pinching MacCready playfully in the side. The merc yelped, returning the gesture with a playful little slap to the chest. They shared a laugh, then the older man pulled his lover back down onto the mattress, wrapping his arms tightly around him. MacCready let out a happy little sigh, feeling the fatigue of the day starting to pull him back down into sleep. Jesus it’s been a long day. Their days were always long.

 

“Caleb...I never thought I’d love anyone again after Lucy. Honestly I...thought it would be just me and Duncan until whatever end came. But you…”

 

MacCready now played with the dog tags around his neck, given to him the day he had given Caleb the carved toy soldier, the day they had admitted their deeper feelings to each other. That was the day when his second chance at life, as he saw it, truly began. He felt warm, at peace, a sort of bliss he wasn’t sure he’s ever felt, even in his life with Lucy.. Hell, he felt safe enough to give in to his exhaustion and bed down right next to Caleb, giving out a big, tired yawn where with Lucy, he was ever cautious and on watch, ready to have to fire on their unseen enemies. It just felt so much different with Caleb.

 

“You just _had_ to weasel in, huh? Well...I just wanted to say I...love you too…”

 

“I know...and hey...thanks, for...well, everything. I think...Jenine would be happy to know I have someone like you to look out for me…”

 

That took MacCready by surprise, and honestly it touched his heart. He wasn’t sure whether he could believe that Caleb’s wife would really approve of him, given the nature of who and what he really was, but hearing this from Caleb made him feel rather honored that he would even say such a thing. He certainly knew Lucy would be glad to know someone else was looking after him, since he spent so many years of his life looking after others. Now, he had someone of his own to look after him, and he didn’t have to be strong at all times, to fight for those he sought to protect. No, now he could live, now he could release, now he could share his burdens. This was a life he had always wanted without knowing it, and even if he didn’t think he deserved it, Caleb was willing to give it to him.

 


End file.
